$3000 would be very light damage and would not explain your test drive. The light pod, re & re for the light pod, some minor body work would easily be $3K.

There's something else to the story. Carfax will only report insurance history. If the car was damaged and there was no insurance claim, it wouldn't likely show (for example if the previous owner didn't have collision coverage and had a single vehicle accident, no insurance claim, won't show on Carfax). I'd have the car inspected by a third party before buying it.

CarProof will show claims; if a claim was not made, it should still show an estimate. Even if an estimate was not made, the accident should have been reported to a collision reporting centre, which will then still show on the CarProof, albeit with no dollar amount...

This sounds fishy if the car is not driving right, and looks/feels off. Sounds like it could have been a more significant event...

$3000 in a claim is not much at all.
DID you know that the actual amount will include
-rental of the vehicle ? Oh yeah rental ( if applicable )
-actual repair
-storage of the vehicle ( if the car sits in the shop longer than time to repair it.
Sometimes the parts need to come from Germany, now if that happens storage fees..... )
-insurance almost always pays full retail price to the repair shop, that is priceyyy
So for $3000 you will get just the headlight and the air freshener !